IV
Ana leaned nervously against the elevator railing. Instead of having fun, she had to answer a thousand questions about the power outage or the phones that had suddenly stopped working.
This is worse than a business conference during a stock market crash, she muttered in frustration.
Dijana, who was herself trying to help with the situation, only nodded, squeezing her hand. Erik, who towered over the whole group and scanned each of the entrances with a grim gaze, only nodded silently.
"Okay, now honestly, do you know what's going on?" Dijana asked.
"Not really, but it must be something serious. Nick wouldn't resort to methods like this without reason." Ana was pensively trying to turn on her phone. She wasn't succeeding.
"And you know this Nick?" Dijana kept probing.
Ana raised a surprised gaze from her phone and looked at her companion. Well, it was no wonder — until a few hours ago she hadn't even known her, so it was no surprise she was asking about Nick. She put the useless phone away in her purse.
"Nick is like a brother to me and the chief organizer of this fiasco," she replied calmly.
Erik suddenly vanished, and both of them followed him with their eyes. Some kind of scuffle and clamor was building in the rappers' zone. For a moment it looked serious, but a dozen or so security people managed to resolve that problem too.
"If that Nick of yours doesn't come up with something very fast, no security will stop the people once they start," Dijana nervously bit a lacquered nail.
Ana watched her. She herself sometimes had the urge to bite her nails out of nervousness and had fought for years to shed that unpleasant habit.
You can't show up to a meeting with bitten nails.
You simply have to be perfect, otherwise you're not taken seriously.
She sympathized with the girl and realized she didn't know her at all.
"Are you worried?" she asked.
Dijana looked at her, understood why, and, embarrassed, took her hand away from her face. She looked at Ana defiantly.
"And you're not, supposedly."
"Honestly, I think we're done for if these boys of ours start to worry. Right now they're occupied, but soon they'll start asking questions too."
At that moment Erik returned and realized they were both watching him. He looked at them questioningly.
"What?" he asked shortly.
The younger girl looked away and became very interested in a stain on the concrete, while Ana answered him calmly:
"You say Nick just asked you to listen to me? And that's it?"
Erik nodded. Ana realized she wouldn't get much information out of him and stopped asking.
With a sigh she noticed the latest gaggle of hens making a fuss at one of the entrances.
She was heading toward them when suddenly a loud static and whine tore through the room.
Ana raised her gaze in surprise and searched for the source of the sound.
She found it in an old-fashioned speaker set in a metal box high above her head.
The static and whine stopped, and a pleasant female voice rang out through the room, broken only occasionally by the crackle of the long-unused system's static.
"Um… first of all, hello everyone… I hope you can all hear me well in all the rooms…"
Ana noticed people calming down and unconsciously staring at the ceiling in some primal hope of seeing who was speaking somewhere up above them. The young woman's voice echoed through the suddenly hushed rooms:
…we hope you had a good time and that the party was a reward for all your efforts throughout the year…
The odd voice of agreement was heard, as well as an approving whistle.
But now it's time for reality… the voice paused for a moment, clearly emotional, while the silence around Ana was deafening.
A reality brought to us by some news. Honestly, I don't know where to begin, but we ask for everyone's understanding.
First of all, I believe you're all more or less aware of the current situation in the world and the conflict between several military blocs on our globe…
The odd voice of approval was heard around Ana, who noticed many heads nodding, still staring at the ceiling.
The thing is, those same blocs reached for the so-called red button, and did so en masse, which means we are currently in a world nuclear war!
Dijana grabbed her hand and squeezed painfully. Erik unconsciously looked toward the room where his wife was. All around, people murmured, and the odd scream of disbelief was heard. The voice went on:
The rumble from earlier, followed by the power outage, tells us just one thing.
Zagreb has been hit by one or several nuclear missiles.
Which means it's gone… The voice stopped for a moment, while all around Ana a terrible uproar began.
As if some mythical beast were waking from a centuries-long sleep and voicing its displeasure.
Ana lost the strength in her legs and sat down on the floor, leaning against the safety railing of the now-dead elevator.
Dijana settled beside her, not letting go of her hand.
Ana was too paralyzed by what had been said to be able to think or plan.
Her job, her apartment, the life she'd worked so hard for, the relationships she'd nurtured for years, the business contacts.
It had all gone up in smoke — and literally, if what she'd just heard was true.
She had no family, but looking at Dijana she saw her tears and realized the girl had arrived at those thoughts too.
Ana wiped the tears from the younger girl's face with her free hand, and the girl, giving her a grateful look with tearful eyes, rested her head on her shoulder.
She lifted her gaze and noticed similar expressions around them.
People murmured in indistinct voices, some understanding, some still not believing what had been announced.
She wasn't naive or a believer in miracles.
If a nuclear war had really broken out, then everything above was destroyed.
But many around her still hoped. Hoped that everything said was just a lie and that the party would go on the moment someone nearby screamed it was all a trick and a joke.
But she instinctively knew it was the truth.
Otherwise Nick wouldn't have given her a stun gun for her safety.
Nick — where was he and what was he doing now?
the question echoed in her head. She pulled the stun gun out of her purse and looked at it as if the thing would tell her where the man she considered family was.
The device, with its cold plastic, offered no comfort, but it stirred some sense of security.
Her heart leapt gratefully. The world was no longer so cold, because somewhere in this place was a person who cared about her.
A person who, in the turmoil and panic, thought first of Ana.
Her family. Her feelings for Nick brought tears to her eyes.
She secretly shook her head — she didn't want anyone to see her cry.
There was no use crying now, and besides, she was convinced everything would be resolved in the best possible way.
She sighed, put the stun gun back in her purse, and with her free hand wiped her wet eyes, not caring what it would do to her carefully applied makeup.
After a pause meant for absorbing the news, the young woman's voice rang through the rooms again over the speaker. The gathered fell silent once more.
But it's not all over…, the voice now had a different note, somewhat elated, as if trying to awaken hope.
We're here, we're alive and well. And around us is our beautiful Sljeme and thousands of tons of concrete protecting us.
Fate willed that today of all days we'd be in the only building capable of protecting people at times like these.
But a building is only a building, and it will take a lot of love and will for it to go on protecting us in the days ahead.
It will take our will, our hands, and our minds to keep everything working as it should.
Remember, you are young and you possess knowledge and will.
Knowledge — as students of engineering who could maintain the walls of our shelter, economists who could run the administration, electrical engineers who could get our sound system working so the party can go on?
Unforced laughter around Ana. She felt something changing in the room.
Misery and gloom were giving way to the first traces of hope on the faces around her.
Ana straightened up while the emotion-charged voice went on.
She thought she'd like to meet that girl.
She had such an expressive voice and must have been an impressive figure.
It was no wonder she was now with Nick somewhere above them. She smiled and went on listening.
So we should found a new society, a community whose priority would be maintaining our shelter, the general good of the whole community, and, of course, survival.
And that, believe me, is possible. Look at the faces around you.
Care for one another, because that's all we have now; find your personal worth and know that we can succeed.
We can survive and we can persevere, despite the harsh conditions and the grim situation around us.
You are the cream of the generation, and you only need to find, somewhere deep inside, the will to build something that won't collapse — because we are not fools like those who destroyed the world above us.
The speakers went quiet, and the clamor rose around Ana.
People were all talking at once, and the noise was almost unbearable. She felt some kind of purpose, hope. And now she finally knew why Nick had told Erik to listen to her. She could calm the chaos in the rooms.
"We've got work to do," she said abruptly to Erik, who nodded in confirmation.